Thanks
to the power of online video services, the
Huffington
Post has resurrected TV ads from Republican Mitt Romney's failed 1994 bid
for the U.S. Senate. The ads sponsored by opponent Sen. Ted Kennedy painted
Romney (pictured at left), then a partner at Bain Capital LLC, as a heartless
businessman crushing the poor workingman. Evidently, Ampad, a Bain Capital
portfolio company, acquired rival SCM and proceeded to lay off its employees,
who were later offered their jobs back at a lower rate. However, the
Huffington Post, like the ads, may have overlooked an important detail,
according to
PEhub's Dan Primack: Romney was on leave exploring his political
aspirations when Ampad bought SCM.
In addition, The HufPo overstates the significance of the ads by calling them
"the backbreaker" of Romney's campaign. However, as a resident of
Massachusetts at the time, I can't recall the commercials playing much of an
impact in the campaign — even after reviewing them, I don't think I ever saw
them. Instead, it was Romney's flip-flopping over the abortion issue that Sen.
Kennedy hammered home in their debates that doomed Romney's campaign.
While Primack feels these ads failed to sway voters in 1994 and will again
fail in the 2008 presidential campaigns, that may not be so. In the decade
that has followed, private equity has become a driving force in our economy,
gobbling up household names like Albertson's, Chrysler and Toys "R" Us. Now,
PE firms are reeling from backlash from labor unions, investors and the press,
which has recently led to the
formation
of the Private Equity Council to counter the perception of PE firms as
barbarians. So should Romney establish himself as the Republican frontrunner
heading into the primaries, you could see more ads like these. —Matthew
Wurtzel
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story from Huffington Post
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from PEhub
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